Ode for Music on St Cecilia's Day Two Chorus's to the Tragedy of Brutus. The Dying Christian to his Soul Epistle I. (to Lord Cobham): of the Knowledge and Characters of Men Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, being the Pro- Satires and Epistles of Horace Imitated The First Satire of the Second Book The Second Satire of the Second Book. The First Epistle of the First Book The Sixth Epistle of the First Book The First Epistle of the Second Book The Second Epistle of the Second Book 316 A List of Books, Papers and Verses, &c. Index of Persons celebrated in this Poem Part of the Ninth Ode of the fourth Book 445 To Mr Jervas, with Mr Dryden's Trans- lation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting A Paraphrase on Thomas à Kempis To the Author of a Poem entitled Successio Epigram on the Feuds about Handel and Epigram (You beat your pate, &c.) Epitaph (Well then, poor G-, &c.) Epitaph (Here Francis C-lies, &c.). To a Lady with "The Temple of Fame' Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-Cat Club 467 On Drawings of the Statues of Apollo, INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. VERY VERY wonderful is the vitality of names; and there is reason to believe that books and essays continue to this day to make their appearance, in which the period of our literary history coinciding with the literary life of Pope is spoken of as our Augustan age. Were this transfer of title intended to imply the existence during the period in question of any royal patronage of letters such as the first of the legitimate Cæsars was too prudent absolutely to neglect, it would condemn itself at once. The English Augustans were not warmed by the favour of any English Augustus. William the Deliverer, in whose reign they had grown up, had been without stomach for the literature of a nation with whose tastes and habits he had never made it part of his political programme to sympathise. Queen Anne's very feeble light of personal judgment was easily kept under by the resolute will of her favourites, or flickered timidly under cover of the narrowest orthodoxy. Of the first two Georges the former, indifferent to an unpopularity which never seemed to endanger his tenure of the throne, neither possessed an ordinary mastery of the English tongue nor manifested even a transient desire to acquire it. His successor had no objection to be considered, in virtue of his mistress rather than his wife, the patron of the literary adherents of a political party, until, on mounting the throne, he blandly disappointed the hopes of that party itself. The epoch of our Augustans had all but closed, when the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, put an absolute end to the nominal hopes in the advent of a golden age for the liberal arts, by averting the accession of a Patriot King. Neither was the defect of royal patronage supplied by any genuine cenas from among the great ones of the realm. The traditions in this respect of the Stuart period-traditions doubtless exaggerated in the age of Pope, yet not wholly baseless-had barely survived the expulsion of the last Stuart King. Of King William's Batavian comrades, none had sought to grace their newly-acquired dignities and incomes by fostering the efforts of genius in the country which they had consented to adopt. Among the chief English-born noblemen and gentlemen |
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